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By GEORGE WILKENS gwilkens@tampatrib.com

The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 22, 2008

PLANT CITY - The holiday season begins early at Paradise Inc., the world's largest producer of a baking ingredient few know by its official name: glace fruit.

That French term invariably causes confusion, so Paradise calls it "candied fruit," concedes longtime company exec Tracy Schulis.

Even those familiar with neither term recognize the product as the distinctive sweet morsels that give fruitcake its color - and its name.

Candied strawberries, cherries and pineapple - the latter two in festive colors - are among the fruits Paradise produces and packages for home baking needs, as well as for bakeries, including the nearly century-old granddaddy of the fruitcake industry, Claxton.

"We've done business with them Georgia-based Claxton for years and years," said Schulis, who joined the company in 1979 after receiving a finance degree from Florida State University. He is senior vice president of the publicly traded company.

Most of Paradise's annual production of 9 million pounds of candied fruit is sold through grocery chains across the country and throughout the Caribbean.

"Our candied fruit is a traditional seasonal holiday product," Schulis said.

During fruit production - starting in March or April and followed by the peak shipping period of August through mid-November - up to 225 workers are employed at the plant.

In addition to requiring many workers, creating candied fruit takes time.

For example, pineapple, which arrives at Paradise from the Far East in large chunks packed in brine, a preservative, is cooked in corn sweetener for up to 14 days.

"The fruit - if you think of it as a sponge - absorbs that" heated syrup, becoming increasingly sweeter as it cooks, Schulis said. Once the sweetness of the fruit equals that of the syrup in which it is contained, the vat is drained, an even sweeter syrup is injected, and cooking resumes.

Once the process is complete, the fruit is drained and packaged by assembly line workers at the production facility and warehouse.

"Our most important asset is the people we have here working for us," Schulis said. "Many of them are local, from the Plant City/Lakeland area."

The Paradise line those workers process and package includes candied ginger, orange peel, lemon peel, a fruitcake mix, a cherry/pineapple mix, an old English fruit and peel mix and citron, a yellow semitropical fruit resembling a lime or lemon, only larger and less acidic.

Every container packaged for retail sale bears the Plant City name just above the Paradise logo.

"As far back as I can remember," said Mayor Rick Lott, "Paradise Fruit has been an important part of our community and has done a wonderful job branding our community throughout the world."

Paradise and several other local foodprocessors are hidden jewels helping contribute to a steady employment base, Lott said.

The lid of each plastic container from Paradise contains a fold-out, full-color label that includes two recipes for that candied fruit inside, plus a coupon for a 50-cent savings on a future purchase.

"Many of the recipes were developed right here at Paradise," said Schulis, calling the cherry chocolate chip cookies, one of the featured recipes, "absolutely outstanding."

Information the company has obtained from customers indicates baking from scratch is making a comeback, even among the young longing to recapture family traditions, "which is excellent for us," Schulis said.

Paradise recently debuted its Think Fruit line of natural dehydrated fruits to garnish cereal, salads or ice cream and other desserts.

The new products come in 4-ounce shaker bottles and 1.5-ounce single-serve pouches ideal for lunchboxes and backpacks.

Varieties include sliced cinnamon apple, strawberry, pineapple chunk, sliced peaches and cranberries.

The company has annual sales of $26 million, about 30 percent of which is derived from its Paradise Plastics division, a custom injection-mold operation producing everything from containers to heavy-gauge parts requiring computer-assisted forming.

The company made its Plant City debut in 1962 after Frank A. Weaner bought several Polk County companies, consolidated them and moved operations here. He renamed the reorganized company Paradise.

Weaner, a Detroit native and Tampa Bay area banker and investor, died in 1997 at age 89.

His portrait hangs in the reception area of the company near a sign that greets visitors: "Welcome to Paradise."

PARADISE INC.

FOUNDED: 1962

SIZE OF PLANT: 300,000 square feet, at 1200 W. Dr. Martin L. King Jr. Blvd., Plant City

PEAK SEASON: Spring through November

ANNUAL PRODUCTION: 9 million pounds of candied fruit

Reporter George Wilkens can be reached at (813) 865-4433.

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